Bipolar Has an Effect on Families

September 16, 2016

By Anonymous, Pasco , WA

Image Credit: Joslyn R., Margate, FL

My whole life I was told he was different and I had to forgive him for the little things because it’s not his fault. Being older now, I understand that it wasn’t his fault even though I blamed him for everything before. I got told no a lot, or I would get told one thing and have a different answer an hour later. Bipolar is a real thing, and it messes with families. I remember coming home and asking where he was, my mom couldn’t give me a straight answer because I was six and wouldn’t understand. She was right, I didn’t understand a single thing back then. All I knew was that he was the bad guy. The fact was that people who have this disease can’t control the things they say or do sometimes. One day it just seemed like things were going to drastically change. Little did I know that it was going to happen sooner than later. They came home and told us to grab everything we really want to hold on to and pack it up. We couldn’t take much since we had to leave so soon and fit eight people and all our stuff into a Dodge truck and drive across the country.

Four days go by and we get to my grandmas around midnight. They told us we would stay there until we found a house to live in. After a couple months we found a house in Pasco. One day we went back to my grandparents to visit. I was upstairs with my aunt and he was downstairs with my grandpa, they were just having a simple argument. My mom and grandma were out with the ladies having coffee. My little brother comes running upstairs saying grandpa told us we have to leave. We weren’t there that long, so I was confused. I heard a loud noise, I looked out of the window and saw him doing donuts in the driveway. We ended up staying there until my mom could come and take us home. He was gone for a couple days and she doesn’t think we notice, but I do.

A year or so later we move to another house and I was at a friend’s house a couple blocks away. I get a text from my mom telling me to come home since it was getting late, but I ignored it. I end up going home about forty-five minutes after I got the text. When I walk up to the door, it swings open and my sister runs out yelling. I don’t know what’s going on inside but all she’s saying is “he’s lost it”. I walk inside and see him holding my mother by the neck and her feet weren’t touching the ground. She drops when my brother pushes him off of her. She was sitting on the ground with my younger siblings holding her neck that’s bruised with hand marks when my grandpa comes running in the door and drags him outside. They drive away and he was gone for a couple months this time. I came in too late, that’s all I could think about. I hated him, that’s the only feelings I had. After a couple weeks, my mom comes home with a woman that’s supposed to talk to us about what happened. First, she talked to us all together even though no one wanted to talk. Then, she talked to us one by one. The questions she was asking me were absurd. She wanted to know if he raped me, if there was any abuse when I was little. I answered no to all of these. I hated him, but I also didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. Like I was told before, it wasn’t his fault. I technically wasn’t lying; he didn’t physically hurt me.

Kids come home and tell their parents that some rude little kid was calling them a mean name. For me, my bully wasn’t at school, he lived with me. Every day I got told I wasn’t good enough or that I needed to lose weight. When you have fifty percent of someone genes and they tell you that no one is really going to love you because of the way you look, it sinks in. I can’t blame him though; he couldn’t control the things he said.

After a while of him being in the hospital, my mother tells us we need to visit him. I instantly get a bad feeling about this place. We waited in a room until he came in wearing his normal clothes and tennis shoes, but no shoe laces. I guess they take them away so you don’t hurt yourself. I don’t remember much but I remember that I spent the whole time ignoring him, I couldn’t even look him in the eye. When we got home, she sat us all down and asked if we were okay with him coming home, it was a no. When he got out, he stayed in a trailer at my grandparents. When she went over there to see how he was doing, he begged to come home. This time she didn’t ask, she told. The day he came home, I had too much going through my mind. Why would she forgive him? Even though now I know it wasn’t his fault.

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